Card Payment Fees for UK Takeaways Compared: Stripe, Square, SumUp, Dojo, Zettle and Worldpay (2026)

On the rates each provider publishes for UK businesses (checked 28 October 2026), a takeaway pays between 19.5p and 45p in card fees on a £25 counter sale and between 29.5p and 92.5p on a £25 online order, on UK personal cards. At the counter, pay-as-you-go runs from 1.69% (SumUp) to 1.75% (Square and PayPal Point of Sale, formerly Zettle). Online, Stripe charges 1.5% + 20p on a standard UK card, Square Online 1.4% + 25p, SumUp 2.5%, and Aexir 2.5% + 30p through Stripe, which includes Aexir’s platform contribution. Dojo’s fees schedule gives no figures, and Worldpay quotes by turnover. Below: every rate, the sums per order, and how to pick.

UK card rates, as each provider publishes them

Every figure below was read from the provider’s own UK pages on 28 October 2026 and is quoted the way the provider states it. Rates are for UK-issued cards unless the row says otherwise. Where a provider publishes no figure, the table says so; nothing here is estimated or taken from a comparison site.

Three notes on reading the table. Stripe’s GB page prices in-person Terminal payments for “EEA cards” and does not list UK-issued cards separately, so confirm the counter rate with Stripe before relying on it. Zettle is now PayPal Point of Sale, and the zettle.com page lists its own Payment Links at 2.5% while saying they are temporarily unavailable for new sellers; the 1.2% + 30p figure is from PayPal’s UK fees page. Worldpay’s figures come from its online quote tool, which prices by annual card turnover and labels the result “indicative only”.

What a takeaway pays on a £20 and a £25 order

The sum is the percentage of the order plus any fixed pence. On a £25 order, 1.5% + 20p is 37.5p plus 20p, so 57.5p. The table runs every published rate at £20 and £25, shown to the quarter penny as the maths gives it.

On a £25 order, every provider’s counter rate comes out lower than its online rate. Online, Aexir’s 2.5% + 30p is the highest figure in the table: 35p more than Stripe’s standard UK card rate and 2.5p more than Stripe’s premium card rate. Two rates in the first table cost more still, but apply to other kinds of payment: PayPal Checkout, when the customer pays with PayPal, at 2.9% + 30p (102.5p on £25), and Stripe’s international card rate at 3.15% + 20p (98.75p). Why Aexir’s rate is higher than Stripe’s own, and when it is worth it, is covered below.

Fixed pence or flat percentage: which is cheaper?

A fixed fee weighs most on small orders; a flat percentage weighs most on large ones. On a £10 order, Stripe’s 20p fixed fee lifts its effective rate to 3.5% and Square Online’s 25p lifts it to 3.9%, while SumUp’s flat 2.5% stays at 2.5%. On a £40 order it flips: Stripe falls to 2.0%, Square Online to about 2.03%, and SumUp is still 2.5%.

• Stripe (1.5% + 20p) and SumUp online (2.5%) cost the same at £20. Below £20 SumUp is cheaper; above it, Stripe is.
• Square Online (1.4% + 25p) and SumUp online meet at about £22.73.
• Stripe and Square Online meet at £50: below that Stripe’s lower fixed fee wins, above it Square’s lower percentage does.
• PayPal’s online card rate (1.2% + 30p) undercuts Stripe’s standard UK rate on orders above about £33.33.
• At the counter, Stripe Terminal’s 1.4% + 10p (its “EEA cards” rate) costs more than the 1.75% of Square and PayPal Point of Sale below about £28.57, and more than SumUp’s 1.69% below about £34.48. Above those values it costs less.
• Aexir and SumUp online share the 2.5%, so Aexir is 30p more on every order, whatever the value.
• SumUp’s Payments Plus cuts counter debit and credit from 1.69% to 0.99%, a 0.70 point saving, so the £19 a month pays for itself at about £2,714 a month of those payments (about £2,250 on the £189 yearly plan). SumUp’s own page pitches it at £3,000 or more a month.

So a shop with a small average order should favour a flat percentage, and one with a large average order a low percentage with a fixed fee. Your till or payment dashboard shows your real average order value; use that figure, not a guess. The menu markup calculator takes your card processing rate as an input, so you can see what each dish leaves you after the fee.

The cheapest card machine for a takeaway counter

There is no single cheapest card machine, only the cheapest one for your monthly card takings. Here is one worked example, labelled as such: a counter taking £6,000 a month on cards in 240 payments of £25. That is £72,000 a year, which puts it in Worldpay’s £60,001 to £90,000 quote band.

At £6,000 a month, a monthly plan or a quoted account comes out ahead of pay-as-you-go. SumUp Payments Plus costs £78.40 against £101.40 on pay-as-you-go, and Worldpay lands anywhere between £71.80 and £107.80 depending on how many customers pay by credit card. A quieter counter is a different story: below about £2,714 a month of domestic card payments, SumUp’s pay-as-you-go beats its Payments Plus, and a plan with no monthly fee costs nothing in a month with no card sales.

We could not price Dojo. Its UK fees schedule lists every card rate, the secure transaction fee and the refund fee as based on your agreed plan, and it also lists an early account closure fee where an agreement has a minimum term. SumUp says Payments Plus carries no long-term commitment, and PayPal Point of Sale says there are no contracts or recurring fees. Whoever you talk to, get the term and the cost of leaving in writing.

Online orders: price the system and the card rate together

Stripe, Square, SumUp and PayPal rates are what it costs to take a card. A card rate on its own is not an ordering system. To take a delivery order online you also need a menu with options and extras, a basket, a checkout, an order screen in the kitchen and somewhere to change prices, and that costs either a monthly fee or your own time to build.

Worked example: 300 online orders a month at £25, so £7,500 of card takings. These are the card fees and the published monthly fee for each route.

On these numbers Aexir costs £105 a month more in card fees than Stripe on its own. That is exactly Aexir’s 1% + 10p platform contribution on 300 orders: £75 plus £30. Square Online Free is the cheapest ready-made route in the table if a basic online store does the job for you.

The case for Aexir is what the monthly fee and that contribution buy: depending on the plan, your own branded app, an ordering website and a browser till, for a flat monthly fee at published prices, with the menu built for you. Whether that is worth £105 a month at your volume is your decision, and the sums above are how to make it. If your online orders currently come through a marketplace, compare against its commission instead; our Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats fees comparison sets out each platform’s published rates.

Charges beyond the headline rate

• Disputes: Stripe charges £20 for each dispute received and £20 to counter one, refunded if you win. Worldpay’s quote lists a £20 chargeback fee. Dojo lists chargeback management as based on your agreed plan.
• Refunds: Stripe charges nothing to issue a card refund on standard pricing, but does not return the processing fee from the original sale. Dojo lists a refund fee, and a secure transaction fee on each attempted refund, both based on your agreed plan.
• Premium and non-UK cards: Stripe charges 2.8% + 20p on premium UK cards and 3.15% + 20p on international cards. Square adds 1.5% at the counter for non-UK cards and charges 2.5% + 25p online. SumUp charges 1.69% on premium, international and Amex cards even on Payments Plus. PayPal Point of Sale charges its 1.75% on all major cards, Amex included.
• Monthly charges on quoted accounts: Worldpay’s quote adds £20 a month per terminal and a £5 PCI DSS fee, plus a £15 minimum monthly service charge, which Worldpay describes as what you pay if your monthly transaction charges do not meet the agreed minimum. Dojo’s schedule lists £15 + VAT a month for PCI non-compliance and £3.50 + VAT a month for paper billing.
• Faster payouts: Stripe’s instant payouts cost 1% of the amount with a 40p minimum, while standard-schedule payouts are free. Square’s instant transfer is 1.95%. SumUp pays into its own Business Account by 7am the next day, and Worldpay’s quote shows 24-hour settlement.
• Keyed-in and phone payments: Square charges 2.5% for a manually entered card, and PayPal Point of Sale 3.4% + 20p.

Six questions to ask before you sign

1. What is my effective rate at my own average order value, fixed pence included?
2. What is the rate on credit, premium, business and non-UK cards, not only on debit cards?
3. What do I pay in a month when I take nothing: subscription, terminal rental, PCI fee, minimum service charge?
4. Is there a minimum term, and what does leaving early cost?
5. When does the money reach my bank account, and what does faster settlement cost?
6. For online orders: what does the ordering system cost on top of the card rate, and who builds and updates the menu?

Where Aexir sits

Aexir is an online ordering system for independent restaurants and takeaways: their own branded iOS and Android ordering app, ordering website and browser till (POS on the Go), for a flat monthly fee at published prices. Card payments on the app and the website go through Stripe at 2.5% + 30p per transaction. The pricing page states that 1% + 10p of that is an Aexir platform contribution and the rest covers Stripe. That remainder, 1.5% + 20p, is the same as Stripe’s own published standard UK card rate. UK plans are Web £30, Starter £30, Plus £40 and Pro £50 a month ex VAT.

POS on the Go has no card reader of its own. Counter payments go on whichever card machine you choose from the tables above, at that provider’s rate, and staff record the sale on the till as card. The takeaway EPOS page explains how that works day to day, and the online ordering system page sets out what each plan includes.